


This Too, I Cannot Forgive

by A_Writing_Pen



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Low Chaos, Low Chaos Week 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 08:34:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11574381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Writing_Pen/pseuds/A_Writing_Pen
Summary: Emily found it easier when she could just hate her enemies.





	This Too, I Cannot Forgive

**Author's Note:**

> Managed to just squeeze this in for Low Chaos week. This is my first Dishonored fic and probably not my last.
> 
> I was also disappointed that neither Corvo or Emily had a reaction to Daud's audiograph in Megan/Billie's office so this is a bit of a reaction to that.

"Mother said she missed you," Emily said.

Even without the mask, her father's expression was unreadable, except for a small glimmer in his eyes. It disappeared as quickly as it appeared, but Jessamine was as much her Corvo’s tell as she was Emily's. There was no need to mention The Outsider, the marks on their left hand already proved his intervention.

"She hoped that you would grow up well," Corvo said looking over the garden, “I believe you lived up to her expectations and mine.”

Father and daughter walked through the garden together where they knew the servants couldn't hear. Only a few weeks after the end of Delilah’s short reign, the palace, like much of Dunwall, was still in the process of restoration. So many had been killed in the early days of the coup that it was difficult finding enough hands to begin the repairs. Finding the last of the conspirators had been less difficult; Delilah did not have many friends once she revealed her true color. After assessing the damage, restoring order to the palace and the Isles was underway. Even though the runes and relics had been removed from the garden, superstitions kept most of the servants and even the guards away. It was the perfect place to have a conversation.

"I was able to say goodbye to her this time, " Emily said, "She seemed...at peace."

Corvo shut his eyes. Emily thought how much older her father seemed, as if the stone had aged him. Even greying and weathered, her father had never seemed that old to her. Perhaps because she knew he could still cut down any man before they ever knew what happened. Until Delilah, her father seemed invulnerable, even after the loyalists’ betrayal. Now she saw the weak points in her father, in her country, and in herself. She hoped in this time of recovery, that she was finally becoming the Empress her country needed. Her mother's spirit already told her she was proud of her, so she no longer had to wonder how her mother felt.

"I'm glad for that," Corvo said. "Jessamine." He said quietly.

Emily could still remember the sound of her mother’s voice, otherworldly but still soothing and warm. It was different than hearing her voice on the audiograph. Though probing, at least her mother could respond to her. This time her mother left the world more gently, but the void she left behind was just as painful as the first. Delilah was a poor replacement, as empress and as guide.

Further in the garden, after the gnarled earth and uprooted soil where overgrown plants had sprouted, there was a new memorial for the loyal members that died under Delilah's hand. Alexi's name was at the top. Emily still didn't know what was done with her body in the end. After erecting so many for the dead, she was tired of looking at memorials.

“Her voice was a comfort, even in dark times,” Corvo said.

“Yes, she was,” Emily said, “You never talked about Serkonos.”

"I didn't talk about it because my life was in Dunwall. You and Jessamine were in Dunwall."

“And the Blade Verbana Trophy?”

They both smiled.

Emily had already shown him her odd souvenirs as she told him about her adventures. The trophy had become a joke between them, when Corvo told her that after winning the tournament some drunken friends had used it as a drinking cup and dropped it in the river. They spent the rest of the evening fishing it out.

The path took them to the gazebo that was so deeply burned in their memories. The familiar plaque in memory of Jessamine was there, scrubbed clean of Delilah's etching, but Emily still remembered. In some ways it was better her father was encased in stone during the coup. While he had endured much in life, she was glad he didn't have to see her mother slandered like that. Not again. Delilah’s pettiness had no bounds. She’d rather let Ms. Pilsen be the testament to that than the gazebo.

They paid their respects. Emily sat on the small bend close to the gazebo sitting on the edge so that her father could sit beside her. She took a deep breath.

Emily never felt at ease here. She could still remember her mother's murder and her hate and anger in response. Even the comfort the heart had given her, morbid as it was, was tainted as the voice and feel of Delilah's spirit too closely matched that of her mother's. It seemed that every relic left of her mother, her portraits, the memorial, even the throne Emily had inherited, was tainted by all the conspirators against her and all Emily could do was mitigate the damage.

"I learned some things about mother's death," Emily said.

Corvo sat at attention, back straight and alert. Maybe the gazebo wasn't a good place to have this conversation, Emily thought as the memories resurfaced, but there were still too many eyes and ears in the palace. At least this was already a place of bad memories. Why not ruminate further on them. She had put this off long enough.

"Did you?" Corvo said.

"The ship captain I told you about, the friend of Sokolov's that helped me? She was there that day, but you probably know her best as Billie Lurk," said Emily.

“One of Daud’s mercenaries.”

“Yes.”

His face was stern.

“I was angry too. Am still angry. I don’t know how to make sense of it or this.” From one of her coat pockets she removed an audiograph. “From what I gather it’s Daud. I can’t tell if his story is real or nonsense, not after Delilah. When you’re ready, listen to it and tell me your thoughts.”

Her father took the audiograph and looked it over carefully. From the Lord Regent’s fall, they both knew how damaging a simple audiograph could be. How would the knife of Dunwall undue their lives this time, he must have thought. Emily had debated giving her father the message, but she had no one else to trust with it and the secrets in that message she did not want to keep to herself. Corvo took the message and hid it away.

As much as she wanted to, Emily did not ask the real question she wanted. On Serkonos, she saw how easily her conspirators could be undone, but also how easily fate could have been altered. In Stilton’s case, quite literally. One well timed action, one decision changed, one trinket unbroken. She did not like seeing her enemies as multidimensional; as things easily broken and improperly mended.

Emily found it easier when she could just hate her enemies.


End file.
